Bombing Victim's Family Sifts Through Wreckage

Woman To Be Buried In Dominican Republic

April 17, 1996|By EVELYN LARRUBIA and SCOTT GLOVER Staff Writers and Staff Writer Michael E. Young contributed to this report.

PLANTATION - — Combing through the last of her dead daughter's posessions, Josefina Jimenez on Tuesday said she cannot get over losing Miledy Jimenez Cartaya to a bomb.

"I'm destroyed. Since that day I have not been able to eat or sleep," Jimenez said, sifting through her daughter's mail at the house Miledy Cartaya rented in Jacaranda Lakes. "They have killed my youngest daughter, barely 37 years old."

Miledy Cartaya died instantly when a pipe bomb - hidden in a parcel and anonymously delivered - exploded when she opened it in her kitchen about noon Friday. Her children, Nicolle, 9, and Michael, 13, suffered minor injuries and were released from Broward General Medical Center on Monday.

Cartaya's parents, Josephina and Jose Jimenez, are scheduled to return to their native Dominican Republic today with the remains of their daughter. They said they will take Nicolle and Michael with them.

Josefina Jimenez said she plans to return with the children in a week, and said they will stay with her and her family in Miami, rather than with their father, Dr. Ezequiel Cartaya. Ezequiel Cartaya, a pediatrician and neonatologist, will also fly to Santo Domingo for Thursday's funeral, according to his attorney, Christine K. Hopkins. The Cartayas divorced in 1995 after a 16-year marriage.

Four days after the fatal blast, the scene inside the house at 10060 NW 10th Street was still "disgusting," said Michael Hosto, an insurance adjuster who inspected the home on Tuesday for the owner. He estimated damages at $40,000.

"There was human flesh on the walls, the floors, the ceilings ... it was everywhere," said Hosto, of Fort Lauderdale. "It was disturbing. I just can't imagine what kind of a nut would do something like that."

Hosto said all of the walls in the kitchen, dining room, living room and foyer were destroyed by the pipe bomb.

"There was shrapnel all over the house," Hosto said. "I've been working disasters for seven years and I've never seen anything like this."

Local and federal investigators with Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms continued on Tuesday to search for clues in the bombing.

Although police say they have no suspect in the blast, detectives think Miledy Cartaya was the target of the bomber, mostly because she was the target of another bombing attempt at the Promenade shopping center on March 8, said Sgt. Michael Price, a police spokesman.

In that incident, Miledy Cartaya found a strange device on the hood of her Infiniti. Investigators later determined it was a pipe bomb. No one was injured. Miledy Cartaya implicated her ex-husband in that incident.

Hopkins, Ezequiel Cartaya's attorney, said police have not requested a formal interview with her client.

"I'm sure [the police) are waiting until all these immediate matters are taken care of [before trying to interview Ezequiel Cartaya). After the burial, when the family comes back to the U.S. in another week or so, we'll have a meeting, if they want it."

Price said police have far more questions in the case than answers.

"We're not even close to suspecting anyone," Price said. "We're really just getting started."